Yours, Mine, and Mines
by AkamaiMom
Summary: Ben's into a new (old) video game that reminds Jack of some difficult moments in his past. Luckily, Sam's there to put things into perspective. Fluffery-guttery fun. Completely inspired by my own kids and their addiction to Minecraft. Set around ten years in the future. Sam/Jack established relationship.


**Yours, Mine, and Mines**

 _This story is set about ten years from now in the Glinda universe. When I first started writing this, I had Ben as a child instead of a teenager, but it didn't feel true to me, so I switched things around a bit and modeled him after my various teenagers, instead. If you can suspend a little bit of reality, and you're living with younger life-forms as enthralled with this game as are the kids under my roof, then you'll probably appreciate this little ditty._

 _If not, I hope you enjoy it anyway. Fluffery-guttery-stuff lies ahead._

"Hey, Dad. You watching this?"

Jack glanced first at the documentary playing on the flat-screen before looking back over at his approaching eldest progeny. Ben flopped down onto the couch next to him, long legs lifting in a familiar, fluid motion to rest alongside his own on the ottoman. His son was as tall as he was, lately, and still growing. He'd surpassed his sire in shoe size just last month, and if Ben's caloric intake was any indication, his growth wasn't slowing down anytime soon. It was enough to make a guy feel super old. But he digressed. "Not really. Why?"

Ben lifted the wireless game controller he held. It seemed to be glued to his hand lately. "Mind if I play?"

"Homework done?"

"Naturally."

"All of it?"

"I said it was."

"Yes, but lately, 'finished' seems to mean something different to you than it does to me."

Ben smiled, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "I finished reading 'Taming of the Shrew' for English, did the five word vocab thing, typed up the lab notes for Chemistry, started my Napoleon essay for AP Euro, and did the conjugations for Spanish."

"That's only four classes."

"No homework for PE."

"That's five."

"Dad—trust me. I'm on top of things."

"What about the other class?" Jack laid his iPad on his lap. "The drama thing?"

"I'm running lines later tonight with Madison."

"Madison?"

"Madison Crowley." A new voice entered the fray and Jack turned to see his daughter standing behind them. Jordan was the spitting image of her mother—except for the brown eyes—and just as adept at multitasking. At the moment, she was texting with the thumb of one hand while simultaneously gathering her long, wheat-colored hair into a low ponytail with the other. Without skipping a beat in either activity, she expounded. "She's hot, so Ben is finding all kinds of reasons for extra rehearsals. Which is funny, since they only share two scenes."

Ben paused in his search between the sofa cushions for the remote control to glare back at his little sister. "Shut it, Pipsqueak."

She hit 'send' before focusing a narrowed glare on her older brother. "Make me, loser."

"You're such a pain."

"You're such a nub."

"Ben, cut it out." Jack had used his 'General' tone.

Which his son blithely ignored. "Why doesn't _she_ have to cut it out?"

"Joey, cut it out." Alas, his tone failed him. He'd practically wheedled. But then, he'd always been useless against the powerhouse that was his daughter.

Flashing a dimpled smile, Jordan leaned down and landed a kiss on her father's cheek. "Love you, too, Daddy."

He tried to scowl, but failed. "Homework."

Shoving the phone into her back pocket, Joey adjusted the heavy backpack on her shoulder. "Most of it's done. I've just got to finish notes for history and then head down to the lab to check on the science fair thing."

Most 200 year-old farmhouses in the area had basements, but Jack would bet that his was the only one that boasted a fully stocked laboratory. His wife had retired once Jordan had come along, but she hadn't truly been able to get out of it completely. She still consulted, as did Jack, from time to time. But Sam also ran tests and conducted independent evaluations of new techno-gadgets that came from the Mountain. And even though they both still had clearances that would allow them to talk to God Himself, should the situation warrant, Jack had been better able than Sam to truly fade into the background. Maybe because he'd already retired once, so he had more practice.

More likely, however, it because he was older, and well-past ready to live the rest of his life without being half-terrified most of the time.

So, on the day that he'd arrived home from the Pentagon to see his wife standing in the entryway with a toddler on her hip and a plastic stick with two lines in the window in her hand, he'd decided that he was done. They'd both signed out and bought the farm.

So to speak.

"Speaking of which." Joey paused near the arched entryway into the kitchen. "Where's Mom?"

"Um—dunno." Jack craned his head to look behind him. "In the den? On the computer?"

"I'll look there."

"Joey?" Jack turned fully this time, levering himself around with his elbow on the back of the sectional. His daughter paused halfway through the kitchen doorway. "Stay out of my Oreos."

"Dad." Oh, the whining. Both obnoxious and impressive. "C'mon. It's the only good thing Mom buys."

"Yes. And she buys them for me." Nothing irked him more these days than going to grab some munchies only to find they'd been snaked by a kid. "So keep your manicured little mitts off them."

Beside him, his son snorted. "Oooh. Owned by the Old Guy."

"Shut up, dweeb."

"Back at'cha, midget."

Jack settled back down in his corner of the U-shaped couch and swiped his iPad open again. He should be more annoyed at the bickering between his kids, but to be perfectly honest, it kind of reminded him of how he and Daniel used to pass the time on missions. He grinned, despite himself. Good times.

"So, you sure you're okay with me playing? There's no hockey on anywhere? Or football?"

Jack's grinned faded. It was one of his greatest regrets that his son had no interest whatsoever in sports. His daughter, on the other hand, had inherited his love for all things competitive in spades. Jack turned his attention back down to his tablet, where he'd just finished paying for the new season of club volleyball. Ouch. Expensive spades. But he'd take it. The girl was a natural on any court or field. Her brother was more—cerebral. And geeky. "Nope. You're good to go."

Ben grunted in response, then clicked specific buttons on three different remotes to change the TV set up so that he could play his game. The X-box sitting on top of the satellite receiver gleamed to life. The kid shifted his big frame so that he was practically lying across the couch and ottoman, his knees bridging the gap.

Little plastic clicks—that's all the noise that he ever made. Ben always played games without the sound on, except when he was gaming online with his friends—then he wore some odd little headset through which he communicated with the other gamers. Jack could tell how exciting a game was by how many little plastic clicks happened within a specific period of time. This game didn't seem too exciting: Ben's fingers were methodical on the controls, not hurried or frenzied like they got when he played Halo or Assassin's Creed.

Out of curiosity, O'Neill looked up from his own screen. He'd expected amazing graphics like the games Ben usually went for, but instead was treated to large, chunky, multi-colored blocks. The world in the game seemed to be made out of big cubes. Multi-colored—they were placed in gigantic piles to look like mountains or trees or castles. The blocks ranged in colors from greens to browns to golds and, in some cases, they glowed. Instead of life-like people moving around on the screen, there was a pig—made out of the same awkward blocks, and a cow, and some odd-looking dog that had hearts popping up randomly out of its head.

"What game is this?"

Ben paused his play with a little click. "It's called Minecraft. Grandma Glin gave it to me when I found your old console. She said that Bean's grandkids used to like it, and she thought I might, too."

"It looks kind of lame."

"It's not, really." Ben pointed at the enormous screen mounted on the wall. "You go around with pickaxes and shovels and you mine specific elements out of the earth that you then use to build things that you need to build. And there are bad guys called 'Creepers' that wander around and try to kill you, and things called 'Endermen'. And there's the 'Enderdragon', too, who lives in the 'Nether' and you have to keep away from them or try to defeat them."

"Glinda gave this to you?"

"Like I said. Bean's grandkids were really into it. She said that she remembered how much I loved Legos when I was a kid, and thought this might be something I like."

"And do you?"

Ben lifted an eyebrow in an action Jack recognized as one as familiar as his own reflection. "It's fun."

"You don't shoot anything." That seemed to be a major point of interest for any of his son's other games.

"Not really." Ben offered a distracted little shake of his head. "Although sometimes you get to whack stuff with the axe. That's pretty groovy."

"And all you do is dig stuff out of mines?"

"Basically." Ben flicked a control that opened a screen on the bottom of the display and started panning through what appeared to be building materials. "You can also find chests that have more equipment. Some pickaxes and shovels are more durable, so they last longer. You have to find those to do the really cool building."

"What's with the pig?"

"You can spawn useful critters. Sometimes you have to kill an animal so that you can get more life points." Ben pointed the controller back at the TV and clicked a plastic button that re-started play. "But I'm just fooling around on 'Creative Mode' right now. I convinced some of my other friends to get copies, and now we're working on building The Shire."

Jack thought about that for a moment. "From 'The Hobbit'?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

Ben looked over at him. He blinked exactly twice. "Why not?"

"Why not what?" The voice came from the direction of the kitchen. Both O'Neill men turned their heads to look at Sam, who had stopped under the archway. A heavy leather apron covered her from sternum to knees, obscuring the jeans and black tee-shirt she wore underneath. Her long hair had been piled on her head in what appeared to be a nest of some sort, anchored with—from what Jack could see—three different pencils. In one hand, she held an electric drill at the ready as if it were her favorite Glock.

Her blue eyes, keen even behind the thick plastic safety goggles she wore, skewered their attention onto the action on the television.

Jack gestured towards the screen. "He's building The Shire."

"With Tyler and Leech." Ben systematically placed a dozen or so blocks with a few clicks of his controller. "But they're not home from band yet, so I thought I'd get a head start on Bagshot Row."

Lifting the non-drill-wielding-hand, Sam tugged at the goggles, but only succeeded in shoving them as far as her forehead. "I thought Bree was building with you?"

"She got bored. She's trying to recreate that mountain city now—Minas something."

"Minas Tirith?" This from the General. He knew his Tolkien.

Ben nodded. "That's the one."

"My kind of girl." Sam grinned, then turned her attention towards her husband. "Hey, Jack. Where are the batteries we bought the other day?"

"In the junk drawer." O'Neill fingered the button on the side of his iPad that turned it off, and laid it on the cushion next to him. "Where they belong."

"I looked there."

"In the garage?"

"Nope."

"Your lab?"

"That's where I just came from." She scowled. "They're not in there."

Pursing his lips, Jack narrowed his eyes. "In the drawer where I keep the bills in the den?"

"Try my room, Mom." Ben finished a row and clicked himself onto another. "I took the package in there while I was changing the batteries in my RC drone."

The amazing thing was that the boy couldn't feel his mother's glare boring a hole into the back of his head just as precisely as her drill would have. He just sat there, blithely clicking buttons, as Sam's normally nurturing gaze became something—rather _less_ than nurturing. O'Neill watched with barely tamped-down fascination as his wife took a few steps towards the sectional, then stopped directly behind her first-born. Leaning forward slightly, she braced herself on one arm while placing the drill casually parallel with the right side of Ben's tawny head. With a pulse of her finger, she triggered the DeWalt, sending a loud, insistent whine through the otherwise quietude of the house.

Ben didn't need to be asked twice. Clicking "pause", he tossed the controller aside before unfolding himself from the couch and vaulting over the ottoman on his way to the hallway that sat opposite the kitchen.

"Kid oughta be in track and field."

Sam snorted. "I'd have to be running behind him, nagging, for him to finish his races."

"It's what Moms do."

"Funny." A laugh escaped her—disguised as a snort. Sam reached behind her and untied the strap of her apron. Divesting herself of it, she laid it on the couch, and then rested the drill on top of it. "That's not what the brochure said."

"He was cute at one point in time."

Rounding the outer edge of the sofa, Sam sank down next to her husband, folding one leg underneath her. Her hand, as always, came to rest on his thigh. "What point was that? The not-sleeping time, or the refusing-to-potty-train time, the terrorizing-his-sister time, or the jumping-off-the-roof-onto-the-trampoline time?"

"How about the correcting-his-physics-teacher's-math time?"

Sam grinned, remembering. "Well, that time was pretty awesome. That man was an idiot. Ben and I completely destroyed him during that conference with the principal."

"That was a totally unfair fight." Jack poked her shoulder. "You should have recused yourself."

"The guy was a shrub. He thought he knew more than I did, and he tried to penalize Ben for pointing out his own inadequacies."

"He was an underpaid public school teacher."

"He was a McKay, Jack. Even worse—a Wannabe McKay." Sam turned her blue gaze on her husband, wide and innocent. "I had to take him down a notch. It was a moral imperative."

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. "Having been on the receiving end of a few of your take-downs, I have to admit that I kind of feel sorry for the guy."

"Don't." She reached up and pulled a pencil out of her hair, scratching at the spot where it had been with her index finger. "Anyway. How long do you think it'll be before Ben finds the batteries?"

"Who knows? Jack shook his head. "I've seen worlds that had been attacked by mother ships that were cleaner than that sty he calls a room."

Handing her husband the pencil she'd taken from her bun, Sam went about liberating the other writing implements from her hair. "Pigs are actually very clean animals."

"So I've heard." O'Neill waved a hand in the general direction of the TV screen on the wall in front of him. "That little one's actually pretty cute."

His wife followed his indication, taking a moment from her hair as she studied the display. "It's a weird thing. The graphics are really bad, but the kids just love this game."

"It doesn't seem like it'd be really all that fun."

"Cassie told me that Rocco and Liam play on her old X-Box One. Her husband used to play it in college."

The General offered a little shrug. "Whatever floats their collective boats, I suppose."

"You aren't at all intrigued by it?"

"Nope." He stretched languidly, moving an arm to the back of the couch. "I've done some mining in my time. I have no desire whatsoever to do any more."

"Mining?" Sam handed him three pencils and a ballpoint pen. "When were you ever a miner?"

Reaching behind him, he dropped the implements onto the couch table that sat there before catching his wife's attention. "A couple of times, actually. Don't you remember?"

It was like watching the humanoid form of a computer search engine. Her face blanked for a while as she struggled to figure out where he was, and then her eyes flew wide. "Of course. Geez—I can't believe I forgot about that."

"Which one are you remembering?"

For a moment, she concentrated on untangling her hair from the knot she'd formed, and then shaking it free, massaging her scalp with her fingertips. "Daniel—when he found his girlfriend on the edge of the cliff. The princess, remember? And then her daddy had us flung into the naquadah mines." Her lovely mouth formed a little knot. "What were you talking about?"

"The _mines_ , Sam. The ice planet. The domed city."

"Ah." A knowing quirk lifted her eyebrow, and she patted his leg with just a hint of condescension before allowing her hand to rest again. "Well, technically speaking, we weren't miners. We were refiners. And I was an engineer."

O'Neill looked down at her hand, still on his thigh. "Among other things."

Her thumb made a slow arc against the denim of his jeans. "Among other things."

Jack settled further back into the plush cushions of the sofa. "So, yeah. We were miners."

"In a manner of speaking."

"And then there were the other times we were stuck underground. Getting your dad out of Hell, being imprisoned with that Destroyer of Worlds chick, and on that Viking planet with the Unas in the labyrinth place." He paused, looking at her. "Antarctica."

She smiled just a bit. "Antarctica."

"Pretty much every time we were stuck underground, it was remarkably unpleasant."

"I can see why you wouldn't be too enthralled by this game, then." Sam nestled into his side, laying her cheek against his chest. "Difficult memories."

"It was smelly. And we were constantly dirty. And always either too cold or too hot."

"And hungry." Sam made a noise that sounded like an amused sort of grunt. "Why do those underground societies always seem to feed their inhabitants the same kind of swillish slop?"

"It always tasted like shoes."

"But still. Daniel always just dug into it. It was like he couldn't get enough."

"When he wasn't being celebrated with royal robes and feasts."

"To be fair, that was just the once."

He turned to look at her, at her too-intelligent eyes, her fine features, at the way age had softened her in the very best ways. "You nearly died."

"Only that one time. And you were there to shield me from the worst of it." Sam lifted her palm to tease at the stubble on his cheek. "I knew that you and Teal'c figured out ways to hide me when I passed out. And you gave me more than my share of swill and water. So, even though I couldn't quite hold my own that time, it worked out, right?"

Companionable silence. They'd always been good at that. For the first time in more than a decade, O'Neill allowed himself to mull over the past without the strategic overlay he usually superimposed, trying to see things from her viewpoint. "I guess."

"It wasn't all bad, Jack."

"Hmm?"

"It wasn't all bad. Even the Daniel sarcophagus addiction thing. I was in there with you, for one thing, so it wasn't all horrible."

"We were nearly worked to death."

"But I was with you." She braced her hand on his chest and pushed herself away from him, turning so that she could see his face. "So, that was a good thing."

"That was within the first year of us even knowing each other. We hardly knew each other at that point."

"True." She tilted her head meaningfully. "But I already knew a few things that I admired about you."

"Like what?"

"You were so determined to succeed, and to drag us all with you. You never treated me any differently because I was a woman. You just threw me in and expected me to swim or die. It was liberating. Even when I was hallucinating, and you and Teal'c were hiding me—you made me feel like the visions or memories or whatever were helping the situation."

"Well, you were a hard worker. You never complained or whined. And you were smart—so damned smart—and always thinking. You just kept on going, even when your body couldn't do it anymore." He lifted a finger to trace the line of her jaw. "Even as dirty and tired and pitiful as we were, it was kind of sexy. It made me want to—I don't know—go all caveman protective or something."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"You never told me that before."

"Well, truly," One dark eye squinched a little. "It's kind of creepy for a CO to think that way. And really, _really_ , against regulations."

Rolling her eyes, Sam turned more fully on the couch, balancing on one hip as she looked at him. "Regs. Yeah. Whatever. And not creepy."

"No?"

Her hair caught the late-afternoon light as she shook her head. "Really not. Besides, I wasn't just trying to survive. I was trying to impress you. Trying not to disappoint you."

"You never did."

Her smile grew rueful. "Which one? Impress you or disappoint you?"

"As if that's even a question."

"Oh, please." Her snort wasn't even close to ladylike.

His hand drifted down from the back of the couch to curl around her body, drawing her closer. "When did you ever disappoint me?"

"There are volumes I could fill on that one."

"No there aren't."

She lifted her fingers as she counted off. "Nareem. The Red Sun fiasco. Letting the NID guys gain control of the Prometheus. Getting captured by that dying guy and chained up in that freaky hospital."

Jack didn't even have to think about any of those. "Ummmm—that'd be 'no' to all of those."

"Helping my evil twin nearly destroy the Universe?"

"Really—how could you not trust _yourself_? I gave you permission, anyway. That one was on both of us."

Rolling her eyes, Sam thought for a moment before sighing. "Orlin."

"Well—that one—" Jack rolled his eyes. "Technically not your fault, although I still don't know how you could trust him."

"He showed me that I could."

"How? By making everyone suspicious of you?"

"No. With that thing he did." Her hand wafted in odd little billowing shapes in the air. "That—you know— _thing_."

"That glowing thing?" His snort was playfully derisive. "Oh, well, bring up the glowing thing. How can I ever compete with the glowing thing?"

She nudged him with her elbow. "There was no competition, Jack."

"I hated that dude."

"Orlin was a nice guy. Naive and too sweet, sure. But nice."

"Who charged about a bajillion dollars on your credit cards."

"The gem stones he left me more than than paid them all off."

O'Neill's dark eyes studied her intently. "Why do you always defend him?"

Sam shrugged, teasing at the fabric of his shirt with her fingertips. "Maybe it's just because I understand him. He was forced into a sick kind of solitude. He was lonely for a long, long time."

Jack's brows drew together, a frown thinning his lips. "So?"

"And, with how things were with our jobs and my feelings for you," her hand flattened against his side, a position she suddenly seemed to find enthralling. Face down-turned, she studied her skin against the fabric of his shirt. "I was as lonely as he was."

He knew she wasn't watching him, but he nodded anyway. "Yeah."

"So, I let my guard down."

Jack counted through a few breaths, feeling the weight of her hand on his ribs, the warm familiarity of her body against his side. He'd fallen far earlier than she had all those years ago, knowing within moments of meeting her that he'd need her as he'd never needed anyone before. It had been terrifying—something he couldn't have admitted then. He wasn't sure that he could have identified that in the beginning, let alone acknowledge it as he could now. Somewhere along the line, he'd matured.

"Anyhow." Sam shrugged a little. "Whatever."

"Mmmm." He couldn't help it. His fingers tightened on her hip, the solid strength of her body reassuring and sure. She must have taken the touch as an invitation, because she turned herself until she was flush with him. With a contented sigh, she insinuated herself even closer to him, until she was draped half-atop him with her cheek pressed against his chest. Jack settled a kiss to the top of her tousled hair and smiled, his hand chafing a bit against her upper arm.

When she spoke again, her voice seemed small. "Although, you know what?"

"Hmm?"

"During that whole thing with Orlin, the worst part was that you weren't there. You and Daniel and Teal'c just kind of dropped off the face of the Earth. It was like you'd abandoned me. I know that's not what happened, but that's how it felt."

Jack's fingers traced a random set of circles on his wife's bicep. She'd continue when she was ready.

"And I know why. I know why it had to be that way. But it still sucked. I guess that's why I don't remember the mines or the ice-planet as all bad." She twisted her neck until she was looking up at him, her eyes searching his. "Because at least I knew where I stood with you. I knew you had my back. We were in it together."

Even after all these years, he could still drown in those blue depths—was still drawn to her like a gypsy to the open road. All it took was a shift, a twist, a breath, and he was tasting her sweetness, feeling the most enticing softness in the galaxy where she pressed against him, where her lips melded with his. With a contented sigh, she shifted, opening to him even as she pivoted in his arms. She'd always been athletic and lithe—a fact evidenced by the way she somehow ended up straddling his thighs without breaking his kiss, one of her hands splayed in the coarse gray of his hair while the other played with the hem of his shirt. Jack smiled against her mouth when she tugged at his bottom lip with her teeth, lifting his hands to frame her jaw as he deepened their connection, tugging at her chin with his thumbs, so that he could make a long, leisurely exploration of her warmth. She made a sound—suspiciously close to a purr—as she pressed her body even closer, her knees tightening on his thighs.

Jack angled a kiss on the side of her mouth, then made his way to the exquisitely soft skin just below her jaw, his tongue darting out to tease at the spot where her pulse beat in her throat. She tasted like everything he'd ever wanted—like earth and home and comfort. Like the salvation he'd traveled across time and space to find. Like life itself.

Sam sighed deep in her throat, pulling away to just long enough to drag a kiss along his cheek so she could nip at his ear. Her voice was a mere whisper. "Where are the kids?"

Briefly, Jack wondered what she was talking about. His wife's fingertips had drifted—downward from his hair to the uber-sensitive spot just behind his ear, while her other hand had found its way up under his shirt to rest on his ribs. He couldn't have put together a complete sentence in that moment had the fate of the Universe depended on it. He settled for being succinct. "Batteries. Lab."

"Ah. That's right." She'd returned to his mouth—open, soft, and sweet—her lips warm against his. Her hair fell over her shoulder like a silken waterfall, drifting against his face as her tongue teased at his, her explorations becoming bolder.

Down. His hands made a delicious, heated trail from her cheeks to her throat, his thumbs grazing her collarbones. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingertips, her strong steady life—quickened by passion and the moment. Her shirt was soft atop the supple play of her muscles, and he paused for the barest of moments in anticipation, his palms resting lightly on the upper swell of his wife's—

"Dad—Mom—Geez! Gah! Really?"

Jack pulled away only enough to angle a look behind them, where Ben stood holding a half-full package of batteries in his hand, his face a perfect mixture of embarrassed fascination and horrified disgust. "Like— _really_?"

"What?" Oh, the innocence. Sam shook her hair back over her shoulder again, angling a sweet look at her son even as a smile lifted the corners of her lips. She was enjoying the kid's discomfort. Good woman.

"Sheesh, Mom. Really?"

Sam sat back on Jack's legs and grinned. "You're taking Biology this year, aren't you?" Trust Sam to be able to think enough to speak.

"Plants, Mom. _Plants_. Panda bears. Heredity in fish." Ben tossed the batteries onto the sofa with an exasperated grunt. "Not—whatever that was that you two were doing."

"What, _this_? This canoodling?" Coughing out a giggle, Sam leaned down to wrap herself around her husband again. "You mean—the reason you exist?"

Ben's entire face turned an odd shade that settled somewhere between red and fuschia. "Oh—ick. Just. _Ick_."

Breathing a giggle, Sam rolled her eyes and rose in a fluid motion, reaching out to grasp her drill on the way up. "Fun's over, I guess. I'd better get dinner started, anyway."

Mourning a little inside, Jack watched as she made her way past the ottomans and turned toward the kitchen. Beside him, the couch sagged and bounced a bit as Ben collapsed into his spot again, his hands unerringly finding his game controller and pushing the buttons required to re-start his game. Jack glared at his son. "So, you're just going to go back to the game?"

"Yeah." Ben glanced at him quickly before returning his attention to the action on-screen. "I've gotta purge my brain somehow."

"Maybe you should be purging your room."

"What?"

"How long did it take you to find those batteries?"

"Some people choose to spend all their time organizing so that they don't have to look for stuff."

Jack narrowed his eyes at his son. "Whereas you—"

"I prefer to spend my time looking for stuff so that I don't have to organize."

"Clever."

"I thought so." Blithely ignoring his father's obvious sarcasm, Ben deftly switched one virtual tool for another on the screen. He offered a pained sort of smile. "I'll tidy up on Saturday. Okay?"

"All right." O'Neill raised a brow. "Under your bed and in your closet, too. I'm pretty sure you're going to encounter some alien life forms in there. You might want to go in prepared with a weapon or two. Maybe your baby sister could loan you a baseball bat."

"It's not that bad, Dad."

Jack dragged himself upright, and then to his feet. "You keep telling yourself that, kid."

But Ben didn't answer, consumed again by the construction project on the screen.

Restless, Jack turned back towards the kitchen. Sam had opened the refrigerator and was staring at its contents as if a meal were going to dance out on its own. She could jury-rig a space ship out of a motorcycle and a frisbee, but she had never acquired the ability to improvise dinner. Stifling a grin, O'Neill made his way out of the Ottoman Empire and past the long, marble-topped island that also served as a breakfast bar in the farmhouse kitchen. When he came to a stop directly behind his wife, she was still staring deep into the depths of the ice-box, clearly flummoxed.

"You know, they could just forage."

Her lovely shoulders sagged just a bit. "They could."

Jack stepped even closer, so that only a few inches separated them. He lowered his voice and spoke directly into her ear. "There are a few frozen pizzas in the garage freezer, and I'll overlook our progeny not eating their veggies if you will."

"I'm listening."

"And then I could take your hand like this." He reached forward, demonstrating. "And I could show you the way upstairs where there's this thing. It's kind of like the couch, but bigger and flatter. Super comfy. Super bouncy."

"I've heard of such a thing."

"And once we're there, you could again expound upon the positive aspects of mining."

Sam turned, an amused twist in her smile. "I could indeed."

"We could dig up some other productive activities."

"Delve deep."

"Hit the mother lode."

"Strike gold?"

"Sure. Given enough time and the right equipment."

Her expression turned mockingly serious. "Not to mention the proper technique."

Jack reached around her, swinging the fridge doors closed before tangling his fingers in hers and pulling her inexorably towards the staircase that led upstairs. Wordlessly, he led her up the steps and down a hall towards their room, stepping aside as she made her way across their threshold to stop just inside the doorway. Then he closed the door behind them and hooked her jeans pocket with his index finger, dragging her flush with his body.

Her delightful little teeth played with her bottom lip for a moment before she rose up on tiptoe, her arms encircling his waist. "So. Mining, huh?

"Yes."

"It's hard work." Her hands had made their way beneath his shirt again.

"That, it is."

"Hot, too."

"Mmm-hmm." Her skin was impossibly soft beneath his fingers, and he smiled when she trembled a bit.

Her lips brushed his collarbone, then made a heated path up his throat. "We'll probably get dirty."

" _Probably_ get dirty?" Jack turned the lock in the door behind him—his last act before he completely lost the ability to think. His mouth met hers—quick and hard—before he started pushing her backwards towards the expansive bed that beckoned. "Mrs. O'Neill. I can pretty much _guarantee_ it."


End file.
